“Monsieur,” she replied, “you were in Aix without a valet, and it seemed to me that you were of that class of men who would never move without a valet so long as there was money to pay his wages. That was my first thought. Then when I saw you pursue your friendship with Mlle. Célie—you, who so clearly to my eyes did not love her—I felt sure.”
On the next occasion that the two met, it was again Harry Wethermill who sought Hélène Vauquier. He talked for a minute or two upon indifferent subjects, and then he said quickly:
“I suppose Mme. Dauvray is very rich?”
“She has a great fortune in jewels,” said Hélène Vauquier.
Wethermill started. He was agitated that evening, the woman saw. His hands shook, his face twitched. Clearly he was hard put to it. For he seldom betrayed himself. She thought it time to strike.
“Jewels which she keeps in the safe in her bedroom,” she added.
“Then why don’t you—?” he began, and stopped.
“I said that I too needed help,” replied Hélène, without a ruffle of her composure.
It was nine o’clock at night. Hélène Vauquier had come down to the Casino with a wrap for Mme. Dauvray. The two people were walking down the little street of which the Casino blocks the end. And it happened that an attendant at the Casino, named Alphonse Ruel, passed them, recognised them both, and—smiled to himself with some amusement. What was Wethermill doing in company with Mme. Dauvray’s maid? Ruel had no doubt. Ruel had seen Wethermill often enough these recent days with Mme. Dauvray’s pretty companion. Ruel had all a Frenchman’s sympathy with lovers. He wished them well, those two young and attractive people, and hoped that the maid would help their plans.
But as he passed he caught a sentence spoken suddenly by Wethermill.
“Well, it is true; I must have money.” And the agitated voice and words remained fixed in his memory. He heard, too, a warning “Hush!” from the maid. Then they passed out of his hearing. But he turned and saw that Wethermill was talking volubly. What Harry Wethermill was saying he was saying in a foolish burst of confidence.
“You have guessed it, Hélène—you alone.” He had mortgaged his patent twice over—once in France, once in England—and the second time had been a month ago. He had received a large sum down, which went to pay his pressing creditors. He had hoped to pay the sum back from a new invention.
“But Hélène, I tell you,” he said, “I have a conscience.” And when she smiled he explained. “Oh, not what the priests would call a conscience; that I know. But none the less I have a conscience—a conscience about the things which really matter, at all events to me. There is a flaw in that new invention. It can be improved; I know that. But as yet I do not see how, and—I cannot help it—I must get it right; I cannot let it go imperfect when I know that it’s imperfect, when I know that it can be improved, when I am sure that I shall sooner or later hit upon the needed improvement. That is what I mean when I say I have a conscience.”
Hélène Vauquier smiled indulgently. Men were queer fish. Things which were really of no account troubled and perplexed them and gave them sleepless nights. But it was not for her to object, since it was one of these queer anomalies which was giving her her chance.
“And the people are finding out that you have sold your rights twice over,” she said sympathetically. “That is a pity, monsieur.”
“They know,” he answered; “those in England know.”
“And they are very angry?”
“They threaten me,” said Wethermill. “They give me a month to restore the money. Otherwise there will be disgrace, imprisonment, penal servitude.”
Hélène Vauquier walked calmly on. No sign of the intense joy which she felt was visible in her face, and only a trace of it in her voice.
“Monsieur will, perhaps, meet me tomorrow in Geneva,” she said. And she named a small café in a back street. “I can get a holiday for the afternoon.” And as they were near to the villa and the lights, she walked on ahead.
Wethermill loitered behind. He had tried his luck at the tables and had failed. And—and—he must have the money.
He travelled, accordingly, the next day to Geneva, and was there presented to Adèle Tacé and Hippolyte.
“They are trusted friends of mine,” said Hélène Vauquier to Wethermill, who was not inspired to confidence by the sight of the young man with the big ears and the plastered hair. As a matter of fact, she had never met them before they came this year to Aix.
The Tacé family, which consisted of Adèle and her husband and Jeanne, her mother, were practised criminals. They had taken the house in Geneva deliberately in order to carry out some robberies from the great villas on the lakeside. But they had not been fortunate; and a description of Mme. Dauvray’s jewellery in the woman’s column of a Geneva newspaper had drawn Adèle Tacé over to Aix. She had set about the task of seducing Mme. Dauvray’s maid, and found a master, not an instrument.
In the small café on that afternoon of July Hélène Vauquier instructed her accomplices, quietly and methodically, as though what she proposed was the most ordinary stroke of business. Once or twice subsequently Wethermill, who was the only safe go-between, went
